Corel Valley
Corel Valley, also known as Corral Valley, is a valley on Gaia in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. It is located on the northern continent in the Icicle Area, north of Bone Village. A pathway leading down into the southern side of the valley exists beyond the Sleeping Forest. The Corel Valley Cave appears on the north end of the valley and exits out into another part of the Icicle Area where the Icicle Inn can be traveled to on foot. The main feature of Corel Valley is the Forgotten City, a past settlement of the Cetra. The valley itself is primarily seen in Final Fantasy VII, and is visible from the world map. The player can only originally access it after obtaining the Lunar Harp and traveling through the Sleeping Forest. In the Corel Valley is only one location, the Forgotten City, and the player can travel to Corel Valley Cave by traversing a large conch shell. The coral terrain in the valley is the only type of ground the Highwind can land on other than grass. The literal translation of the valley's name is "Coral Valley", referring to coral, the marine invertebrates. The name was originally mistranslated as "Corral Valley", and later mistranslated again as "Corel Valley". Corel is a town and portion of the world map unrelated to Corel Valley. Story The party descends beyond the Sleeping Forest into the Corel Valley to find Aeris in the Forgotten City. After she dies, the party continues following Sephiroth. Cloud hallucinates Sephiroth walking towards the Corel Valley Cave, and the party heads through it toward the Snow Fields. Two years later, the Remnants of Sephiroth bring several children suffering from Geostigma to the Forgotten City lake to infect them with negative Lifestream. The children are saved by Cloud and Vincent. Locations Corel Valley is an area on the world map, but also includes a couple of areas traveled through after the Sleeping Forest but before entering the world map. The world map area can be accessed after exiting the field areas, or by an exit in the Forgotten City. The Highwind can land on the coral ground, and this area of the world map is also notable because there are no random encounters. Forest Exit The forest exit is a large area, referred to as "Corel Valley" in the menu. The exit at the bottom of the screen leads into the Sleeping Forest while the exit at the top of the screen leads to the descent area. The area features two floors. The lower area is on the bottom-half of the screen, and if the player heads upward and underneath the tree log, they can find a chest containing the Water Ring, an accessory that absorbs Water, useful for an upcoming boss battle where the boss only uses Water-elemental attacks. A slope on the left of the screen takes the player between the levels, and the player can travel through the hollow tree log to get to the other side. One of the area's notable features is a cave entrance and a vine leading down from it; however, neither of these things can be interacted with. This area can be good for level grinding as the enemies are easy to kill and give a lot of EXP for this part of he game. Descent The descent area is a straight path, referred to as "Corel Valley" in the menu. The exit at the bottom of the screen leads to the forest exit area, while exiting at the top leads onto the world map, into the southern portion of the valley. The screen has nothing on it bar random encounters. This area overlooks the valley and the exterior of the Forgotten City, but due to the movement and zoom of the camera and the orientation of the screen, most of the background is not seen. Forgotten City Corel Valley Cave The Corel Valley Cave is a cave at the end of the Corel Valley. The valley-side entrance to the cave sits high above ground-level, accessible to the party by a climbable conch shell. The entrance at the other side leads out into a snow field where the Icicle Inn is located. The cave is vertical, as it connects the land above the valley to the bottom of the valley. All areas of the Corel Valley Cave are referred to as "Corel Valley Cave" in the menu. Climb The climb area contains a large rocky wall traversed by climbing between cracks via multiple pathways. The exit in the bottom-right leads out into the Forgotten City, while the exit in the top-right leads to the cave's exit. With the unclimbable cracks and inability to see the entire area at once, this area can be difficult to navigate. A chest in the upper-left contains a Bolt Armlet armor. Due to the large interaction area of the chest, it can also be opened from the ledge below. A chest in the lower-right contains a HypnoCrown accessory. A chest in the upper-right contains a Megalixir item. At the top, the player can climb down a ladder to pick up the Magic Plus Materia from a secluded area. Snow Fields Exit The exit onto the snow fields is a small cave area. The exit at the top exits out on to the Snow Fields part of the Icicle Area, while the exit at the bottom leads into the climb portion of the cave. A chest in the bottom-right by the exit contains a Power Source item. Quests Navigating the climb The Climb area of the Corel Valley Cave is a vertical cliff-face the player needs to navigate. There are chests in various areas and cut-off. The way to climb to the top (ignoring chests) is to go "left" at ①, "right" at ②, "up" at ③, "left" at ④, "up" at ⑤, and "up" at ⑥. Conversely, if climbing down (which is never necessary), it would be climbing down the ladder, then "right" at ⑤, "down" at ④, "left" at ③, "down" at ②, then "down" at ①. The first approachable item is the Bolt Armlet chest on the left. This can be gotten from two areas, the area left of ②, or the area up from ②. This chest has a wide-enough interaction area that the chest can be opened from beneath it. The quickest way to get the chest would be to go "left" at ②, then go either "up" or "down" at ②, then go back to ② and go "right" (because all the options are not given at the same time—if approaching vertically the horizontal options are given, and if approaching horizontally the vertical options are given). Alternatively one could go "left" or "right" at ②, then go back to ② and climb "up", then get the chest, climb "down" and select "right". This takes a longer time. The second approachable item is the HypnoCrown chest. This can be acquired by going "down" at ③. The third approachable item is the Megalixir chest. This can be opened by going "right" from ④. The fourth approachable item is the Magic Plus Materia. This can be gotten by going "down" from ⑥. Items Enemies ;Forest Exit (72%) ;Descent (72%) Corel Valley Cave Both areas of Corel Valley Cave feature the same encounters. ;Corel Valley Cave (72%) Other appearances ''Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade Musical themes "In Search of the Man in Black" plays in both Corel Valley and Corel Valley Cave field areas. Etymology Trivia *In the game's data, the areas pertaining to Corel Valley are referred to as ''sango (Japanese for "coral"). "sango1" and "sango2" are the first and second areas referred to in the game as "Corel Valley", while "sango3" is the giant conch shell, which is referred to as "Forgotten City" in the menu. No random encounters are fought in Forgotten City areas except the conch shell area. * the first area of Corel Valley has a cave with a vine dropping down from its entrance. The vine cannot be climbed, nor does the entrance have any data associated with it. Unused texts in Bone Village suggest that someone there would give a tutorial for aspects of the Ancient Forest. The field files also order the Ancient Forest fields after the Sleeping Forest, but before the Corel Valley screens. This suggests that the Ancient Forest was planned to be accessible from the Sleeping Forest, and the cave at the end of the Ancient Forest would have exited out of the cave found in Corel Valley.http://thelifestream.net/ffvii-the-original/final-fantasy-vii-the-unused-text-series/part-8/ References Category:Valleys Category:Locations in Final Fantasy VII